


eyes like sinking ships on water (so inviting, i almost jump in)

by firewoodfigs



Series: evermore // folklore [1]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Mutual Pining, Songfic, tfw you can overthrow a dictator and an entire fascist regime but can't break the anti-frat laws
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-16 02:53:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29200149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firewoodfigs/pseuds/firewoodfigs
Summary: In which years of suppressed desires don't necessarily translate to action, but Roy tries. (They both do.)
Relationships: Riza Hawkeye & Team Mustang, Riza Hawkeye/Roy Mustang
Series: evermore // folklore [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2143854
Comments: 10
Kudos: 71





	eyes like sinking ships on water (so inviting, i almost jump in)

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by taylor swift's [gold rush](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pz-f9mM3Ms8).

_Gleaming_   
_Twinkling_   
_Eyes like sinking ships_   
_On waters so inviting_   
_I almost jump in_

—

The first time Riza meets Roy Mustang, she is — well.

She is severely unimpressed. 

He’s just another lanky city boy, after all. Nothing extraordinary. A luggage packed to the brim full of hopes and dreams and clothes unsuited for the countryside’s unpredictable climate sits on the porch, right next to where he stands with a jaunty little wave and an awkward smile. 

“H-hello, Miss… uh…” 

“Hawkeye.” 

“Hello, Miss Hawkeye,” he tries again, a little more confidence in his voice this time. It is still relatively high-pitched, unrefined by puberty. “I’m here for Master Hawkeye.” 

“This way.” She turns around to lead the way, hearing his curious, nervous footsteps trailing behind her. She brings him to her father’s room, where he’s been residing for the past week or so. “My father will tend to you shortly.”

“Thank you,” he says, beaming at her. Riza offers a practiced, polite smile and makes a move to leave, until - “I’ll see you around later?” 

Riza only realises a few, hard moments later that it is a question. Not a statement. 

He’s waiting for a response. 

“Okay.” 

Later comes, and he sees her around. He invites her to have dinner with him. Riza hadn’t expected anyone to spare her more than a fleeting glance. All the other students - bright, wide-eyed dreamers with plenty of time and cash to spare, yet none for her - had only looked past her, right through her, as if she was nothing more than an invisible ghost that roamed the house and did their dishes and laundry without question. 

Roy turns to look at her almost determinedly as she eats wordlessly, like he’s trying to decode a cipher. 

“What?” 

“You don’t look like your father at all,” he says, though not unkindly. 

Riza shrugs, and continues to stare into her bowl of cold, stale porridge. His dark eyes bore into her, twinkling even in the night with intrigue and curiosity. Riza fidgets in her seat. She is not used to anyone paying her any heed, much less examining her, scrutinising her like she’s a newly discovered specimen. 

“I don’t - I don’t mean that in a bad way, of course,” he rushes to correct himself. She can feel her ears burning up, just a little. A natural response to the dull winter evening. 

“I know.” 

And then — months later, his eyes still linger on hers. 

Riza avoids them, fearing the unknown. 

—

_But I don't like a gold rush, gold rush  
_ _I don't like anticipating my face in a red flush  
_ _I don't like that anyone would die to feel your touch  
_ _Everybody wants you  
_ _Everybody wonders what it would be like to love you_

—

“Champagne?” A smooth, charming voice whispers from behind her. 

Elizabeth chuckles coyly behind a gloved hand. “No, thank you.” 

“Just a toast to celebrate your promotion, no?” 

Elizabeth smells the alcohol on him, undertones of whiskey and rum melding into his woodsy cologne as he leans in closer. Close enough for her to see the beginnings of a drunken flush on his handsome face, for her to feel his lingering breath. 

Her resolve is firm. 

Riza keeps her hands folded against the glittering waistline of her dress, a shiny, champagne-coloured number just a few shades lighter than her hair. 

“Not during a mission, sir,” she reminds him. The solid weight of her pistol beneath her dress is cool, almost comforting. A tangible reminder of what they’re here for. “You should be mingling with the rest.” 

Roy does, though not without a disgruntled nod. He does exactly as she says, as if she’s the one issuing orders instead of the other way round. She offers him a strained smile when he looks her way again, the one that she always uses in the office when he’s trying to blur the lines between professionalism and their personal lives. 

His is wider. Unguarded.

Riza averts her gaze and continues to scan the crowd, ready to strike at the first sign of danger, all for him. Anything for him. For him she abstains from the glasses of champagne poured around the ballroom with unrestrained largesse; from intoxication and desire, even as enviable women swarm around him, swooning over him like he’s a treasure to be admired and adored. 

Riza does both, too. Except only from afar.

Her eyes linger on his retreating silhouette as he invites another heiress to dance, and Riza wonders what it would be like to love him freely, without restraint. To have his arm looped casually around her waist, to hold him close like that — like he’s hers, and hers alone. 

(He isn’t.) 

—

 _Walk past, quick brush  
_ _I don't like slow motion double vision in rose blush  
_ _I don't like that falling feels like flying 'til the bone crush  
_ _Everybody wants you  
_ _But I don't like a gold rush_

—

“Would you like to get dinner with me, Lieutenant?” he asks, when they’re working overnight together, alone. This is his shoddy guise for a date, Riza knows. He’s always been a little opportunistic that way, testing her limits, her self-control. 

Riza rejects him for what must have been the umpteenth time. 

“Maybe later, sir. After we’re done,” she says, glancing his way for a second disapprovingly before dedicating herself back to her work once more. She wants nothing more than to return home to Hayate. It gets unbearable, sometimes, being alone with him. It makes unbidden, forbidden thoughts fester, makes desire come into conflict with her otherwise duty-bound mind. It makes even the plainest of office rooms feel like a den of iniquity. 

(It is everything she has ever wanted.)

“I’ll hold you to that,” he affirms, as if he hadn’t already known of her intention to head back home right after. “Really, Lieutenant. You need to eat, at least.” 

“I will.” 

He snorts. He actually snorts. “You’re more likely to feed Hayate than yourself.” 

This is true, so Riza simply ignores it and continues proofreading another one of his draft proposals. It is uncharacteristically meticulous. He gets that way, whenever work flows in rapidly like a relentless stream coming out from a busted dam. Claiming to work better under pressure, when she knows he’s simply trying to lighten her workload. 

Then again, he’s always been a little like this. He has always lightened her burdens, freed her from them, even if it means doing the unthinkable. He would burn her, hurt her by his own hand if it meant it would free her.

“I’ll go get something for us, then. The usual?” 

“Alright. Thank you, sir.” 

Roy nods and rises, pocketing a set of car keys. “I’ll be back soon.” Then he walks past her, brushing his bare knuckles gently against hers like he can’t bear to leave her for even a second. 

Riza waits until he’s gone, until she’s alone. She lets out a shuddering exhale and, feeling her vision blur, closes her eyes for a full minute. 

Even then she still sees remnants of light. 

Riza sighs plaintively and heads to the window, watching her - no, the Colonel drive off towards her favourite eatery. 

It is almost uncanny how well he knows her. Riza has dated before, once or twice, at Rebecca’s behest. None of them have ever come close to knowing her just as well. To their credit, they’d tried. Tried to memorise her usual lunch orders, her favourite flowers. Tried to take her out on fancy dinners, tried to lower her inhibitions with alcohol in hopes that she would reveal some intimate secret that she has kept buried for years. 

They were good men, eligible bachelors, but it is not quite the same. It is not the same as the way Roy understands her so effortlessly. He knows her - every breath, every glance, every unspoken, unspeakable word that lingers between them like a hidden crime. He knows exactly the way she likes her coffee. He knows the grave secret inked on her back, the deadly power it holds. He knows her childhood dreams and her deepest nightmares. 

But he can’t have her. He mustn’t. 

Having her would only crush his dreams. 

(Maybe in another life, Riza thinks. When their bones are crushed and their souls are left to rest, and there is nothing else keeping them apart other than rain-soaked soil.)

—

 _What must it be like  
_ _To grow up that beautiful?  
_ _With your hair falling into place like dominos  
_ _I see me padding 'cross your wooden floors  
_ _With my Eagles t-shirt hanging from the door_

—

Meeting Winry Rockbell is like a breath of fresh air and a slap in the face all at once. 

She is strikingly pretty, cornflower tresses framing her youthful face and big, blue eyes that shimmer with innocence and obvious worry. A tray rests in her callused, pudgy hands - Riza learns that she is an aspiring mechanic - and the faint scent of lavender tea fills the air as she approaches Riza almost timidly. 

It reminds Riza of everything she could have been. 

“Thank you,” she says, gratefully accepting the steaming mug. She chafes her fingers against the smooth porcelain. The younger blonde settles down beside her uneasily, a million questions weighing in between them. 

Riza waits silently, patiently. 

“Um… Miss Second Lieute -” 

“Call me Riza,” she interrupts. The thought of having to hear another child call her by rank, refer to her as nothing more than a soldier is almost agonising. “Riza Hawkeye.” Deciding against dwelling on it for too long, Riza offers an outstretched hand and tries to do away with the rigid formalities that haunt every soldier’s waking moment. “It’s nice to meet you.” 

The child does not reciprocate. Instead, she looks away, and asks, “Have you… have you ever shot someone?” 

The question is framed innocently, so innocently that Riza knows it is one backed by genuine curiosity. 

Still, it is like a stake right through her heart. 

Riza steels herself, collects herself in five seconds flat — the way they were all taught to by their commanding officers before being shipped off to the desert in cramped trucks, like mindless chickens being sent to the slaughterhouse. She clenches her hands, her blood-stained hands, into fists. 

Riza cannot lie. 

“Yes, I have. Many of them.” 

Winry doesn’t look at her. She slumps forward, her small, frail shoulders hunched over as she gazes at the peeling, yellow walls laid out before them like the final vestiges of a childhood summer. 

And Riza can’t help but think that her childhood is coming to an end. Or maybe it already has. 

Winry is the first to confirm it. 

There is more to her than meets the eye. When she first states her dislike for the military, it is almost impossible for Riza to not take it personally, but there is - there is so much more. So much more beneath her sweet, polite smile. Hers is a maturity and independence borne from grief, and it is only natural that she views the military with wary suspicion when she’d lost her parents to the war. 

And now she is on the verge of losing her friends, too. 

Riza looks on at her petite frame forlornly. She thinks of Roy, who she’d once lost to the military. She had wanted him to stay, then. To stay with her in that pathetic excuse of a house, to stay by her side and watch the sun rise, over and over again. Riza remembers her own childhood with Roy as she looks across the glossy rectangles of varnished wood; how they’d left their mud-stained shirts hanging by the door after a day of exploring the sun-kissed hills. 

(Once upon a time, he’d been hers.) 

“The military,” Riza begins, remembering the reason for her newfound devotions, “Isn’t going to take them away. It will be their choice whether to come or not.” 

Winry still doesn’t speak, as if she already knows the answer. She probably knows them as well as she knows Roy. Their minds are made up, and the choice they’re going to make is one that’s going to leave her alone. Worried sick, wondering if they’re homesick. Aching with an insatiable longing for them to return home. 

The similarities are almost painful to watch. It is a tangible reminder of what had once been, before Riza had made her choice.

“To tell the truth, I don’t like the military either,” Riza admits quietly, tea forgotten. She hopes that her words will bring the girl some comfort. Make her a little more empathetic. A little more human. “Because at times, I am forced to take lives.” 

“Then… then why are you in the military?”

“There is someone I need to protect,” Riza states simply. 

Something like understanding begins to flash in Winry’s eyes. And Winry gets it, she knows. They are more alike than she thinks. The same desire to protect her friends lies in Winry’s hands, redolent of oil and grease, overused soap. 

Riza smiles. From behind, she hears Roy reassuring Winry’s grandmother that he is not trying to force the Elric brothers into doing anything. Riza doesn’t doubt that. Roy would never force anyone to do anything against their own volition, against their will. He’s proven that to her more than once. Choice is something that he would never take away from any of his subordinates. 

“It is my own choice to pull the trigger for the person I must protect,” she says, and it’s true. It was her own choice, Riza thinks, to join the military and forego all her secret fantasies of a matrimonial home. 

At least Winry can have that someday. She’ll make sure of it. 

—

 _At dinner parties  
_ _I call you out on your contrarian shit  
_ _And the coastal town  
_ _We wandered 'round had never  
_ _Seen a love as pure as it  
_ _And then it fades into the gray of my day old tea  
_ _'Cause you know it could never be_

—

On Friday nights, Roy likes to throw dinner parties. 

It should’ve been hardly surprising. Roy has always thrived on attention, been the centre of it. Growing up the only boy in a household of women, he’d always been accustomed to company, and she’d heard enough from him to know that they treated him like family even though they weren’t related by blood. 

Roy treats the team the same way. He hosts these ridiculous dinner parties at the bar every now and then, making a point to convince Riza into attendance even though she's frankly nothing close to good company. (Riza has never functioned well in a group setting. She has never had a close-knit family like Roy’s to teach her how to interact with more than one person at a time.)

So she goes. She doesn’t bother dressing up much, just a simple, modest dress that falls below her knees and covers her back securely. It is slightly impractical, a deviation from her usual military blues, but Riza prefers wearing dresses as part of her civilian attire. It doesn’t make her any less efficient with a gun, and it makes her feel a bit more feminine. Pretty, maybe. 

(Riza has never thought of herself as pretty, but Roy makes it a point to remind her whenever the opportunity presents itself.)

“You look lovely, Lieutenant,” he murmurs when she takes her seat. Riza greets the others with a smile that she knows must seem somewhat unnatural and awkward, even though she’s genuinely happy to see them. Roy grins unabashedly. “I’m glad you could come.” 

“Me, too.” 

Riza knows exactly what he’s up to. (Really, he’s not that hard to read.) Roy is not the most social person around. Ask anyone and they’ll probably tell you that it is Maes Hughes, his best friend and resident devoted husband who will make everyone within a ten-mile radius hear about his lovely wife and even lovelier daughter. It is Hughes, actually, who drags Roy out for drinks and supper and birthday parties, who ensures that his social life doesn’t go bust even when work gets in the way. 

But Roy tries. He might be their commanding officer, but he sees them as more than mere pawns. He tries his best to unite everyone, to understand each and every person - to treat them as human, in an institution where they’re treated as nothing less than cannon fodder. Roy tries. For her, for the rest of the team. 

He tries his best to give her the family that she’s never had. 

So Riza tries, too. She makes a concerted effort to participate in their witty banter, in their nonsensical prattling and lovesick ramblings, and feels a little surge of pride well up in her chest when the others laugh at the jokes she makes at Roy’s expense. The focus turns to him, again. Havoc makes a passing remark about how, despite his passably good looks, Colonel Schmidt is still the most popular amongst the women in the military. 

(Riza begs to differ, however. She’s seen him before in the corridors a few times, and there is nothing particularly enticing about his chiseled face or toned body. He can’t hold a candle to her Colonel.) 

Roy is quick to take the bait and defend himself, of course. He begins rattling off about his remarkable achievements and awards, his still-undefeated physical record at the academy and at the gym. More than once, Riza calls him out when his ego leads him to exaggerate the truth and makes it sound like he’s much stronger than he actually is. She’s seen him at the gym before, multiple times. He cannot lift anything beyond three hundred pounds, despite his bold proclamations to the contrary.

To his credit, he takes it all in stride. Havoc cackles and invites him to a challenge, which he readily obliges. His ego is on the line, here, and Roy has never been known to sacrifice that willingly. 

Roy smirks at Havoc. His ego remains unbruised. “We already know what the outcome is going to be.” 

“Well,” Riza smiles. “Good luck with that, sir.” 

Havoc and Breda howl with laughter. They are quick to pour out more beer for everyone, toasting to the weekend and for finally, finally finishing all the long overdue paperwork. 

“Beer?” Havoc asks. 

Riza declines politely. She can tell she’s had a little too much to drink for the night, from the way she’s starting to flush, from the way she doesn’t mind the dangerous proximity between her and Roy. Her and her commanding officer.

Her heart races as she stands. 

“I’m going to the bathroom for a bit.” 

Roy follows her. 

“Are you alright, Lieutenant?” 

“I am,” she says. Riza exits the tavern through the back door, a convenient escape that he’d shown her a long time ago when it used to be just the two of them. “I just…” 

“Needed a break,” he finishes. “I know. Am I bothering you?” 

“You always are.” 

“And you always know how to wound me,” he mourns with an injured sniff. Riza laughs. She wraps her arms around herself, feels the chilly autumn wind slither around their skin as they stand out in the open like a bunch of reckless, dim-witted teenagers. “Come on. I’ll send you back.” 

“It’s alright,” she insists. It is rare that he gets these snippets of time where he can be a friend, instead of a leader, to his subordinates. Riza doesn’t want to rob him of it. “My apartment isn’t that far from here.” 

“A pretty lady like yourself shouldn’t be walking alone at night.” 

“I’m not defenseless, sir,” Riza deadpans. She has three concealed weapons on her being now, and she is not yet drunk enough that she’s unable to shoot at an incoming assailant. 

“Still,” he tries to argue. “You’re not seriously going to walk back, are you?” 

“I can take a cab, sir.” 

“Fine. I’ll pay for it.” 

“No.” 

“Yes,” Roy says, eyes softening when he turns to look at her, and her breath hitches in her throat. He’d looked at her that way, too, when they were in Aerugo just two weeks prior for a mission. Unlike Amestris, Aerugo was all blue skies and blue waters. The place they’d been assigned to was a pretty coastal town, full of streetside stalls selling little fish-shaped trinkets and exotic tea leaves, sandy shores scattered with iridescent seashells. Roy had invited her on an evening stroll more than once, claiming that it’d be a pity if they couldn’t at least enjoy a bit of the seaside, especially since beaches like that didn’t exist in their landlocked state. 

And more than once, she’d accepted his invitation. 

“Shall we head back in? Or would you prefer to go back first?” 

Riza smiles. “I’ll stay for a bit longer.” 

She ends up staying for another hour. Thereafter, Roy offers to send her back, again. 

“We agreed earlier,” she says, quirking an eyebrow. “Should you even be driving, sir?” 

“I’m fine,” Roy waves dismissively. “I really haven’t had that much to drink. It’s just the rest,” he chuckles, jabbing a thumb towards the backseat of Falman’s car where Havoc and Breda are presently passed out. Fuery looks a lot less worse, but he’s sound asleep, too. The youngest member on their team has never been known for tolerating his alcohol well. 

“If you’re sure,” Riza concedes hesitantly. “I could send you back too, sir.” 

“With my car?” 

“Yes.” 

He stares at her, incredulous. “No. Come on. It’s hard to get a cab at this hour.” 

It is, and she’s too tired to argue with him. 

Riza obliges and gets in - into the passenger seat - and relaxes slightly, recounting the night. It had been rather… enjoyable, surprisingly. Riza hadn’t expected to get along so well with her new colleagues, hadn’t expected to feel so welcomed despite being anything but welcoming. (It’s not that she doesn’t want to, or that she doesn’t like them. Quite the opposite, actually. Riza just doesn’t know how to make people feel welcome, the way Roy does.)

She turns to look at Roy, who is driving with one hand on the steering wheel and the other on the back of his neck. 

“Are you alright?” 

“Yeah,” he grunts. “Just a bit of a stiff neck.” 

Riza smiles knowingly. “Make sure you don’t fall asleep at your desk next time, sir.” 

He laughs, humming almost contentedly to himself as he drives. Her apartment is a little less than ten minutes away. 

He gets there in fifteen, as if he can’t bear to leave her for the night. 

Riza sighs quietly at his antics. “My apartment’s just right there.” 

“I know,” he says. Then he turns to her and smiles, almost sadly. “Goodnight, Riza. I hope you enjoyed yourself tonight.” 

“I did, thank you,” she nods. And then she adds, for good measure, “Goodnight, sir.” 

Riza exits his car and wills herself to not look back. Instead she heads straight for her apartment, unlocks the door, removes her shoes and sinks into the couch. She doesn’t bother turning the lights on. (It doesn’t help with the loneliness, not in the least.) In some ways, Riza prefers the dark. The shadows have been her home since joining the military. It is a sniper’s natural habitat, after all, and it reminds her that it is her occupation to watch from afar, to protect. 

Riza picks up the mug that she’d uncharacteristically left lying on the table. It is filled with a citrusy tea that she had made earlier that morning, with the tea leaves that Roy had gotten for her during their trip to Aerugo. (He always makes it a point to get her a souvenir of sorts when they have the chance to travel out of the country.) 

Riza heads to the sink and pours out the gray old tea within, scrubs the mug clean and takes a quick shower before lying down. She thinks of Roy, lying beside her and holding her close. She thinks of all his little quirks and how he habitually makes it a point to put her needs above his, even though she is, for all intents and purposes, his subordinate. She thinks of how he’d insisted on sending her back just so that could spend that much more time together, how his gaze had lingered on her retreating silhouette, how he'd wanted to come up with her, wanted to spend the night with her —

Riza closes her eyes and thinks of all the things that could never be. 

—

 _Gleaming  
_ _Twinkling  
_ _Eyes like sinking ships  
_ _On waters so inviting  
_ _I almost jump in_

—

When Roy ascends from the basement, he looks — off. He doesn’t look at her. Instead, he looks right through her, like so many of the other apprentices before him have done — 

“They took my eyes.”

And her world comes crashing for a full, hard minute. Riza stares at him, sees the anger - the fear - etched across his expression. Instinctively her hands reach out for his face. She wants to hold him, to comfort him, to ask him if he’s alright, but he beats her to it. 

“Can you still fight, Lieutenant?” 

Riza is a little too stunned to react. She hasn’t really recovered from the blood loss, and her vision is getting blurry, but she steels herself and draws her hands back away from his face. Riza knows what he needs. He needs her, not as Riza Hawkeye, but as his Lieutenant.

She can do that. Be his eyes. 

“Yes, sir.” 

—

Things after that pass by in a blur. 

Riza knows they’ve won, that they’ve defeated some self-proclaimed god who tried to end the world, but she’s a little too drained, lost a little too much blood to be able to fully register all that’s going on around her. She knows she’s at the hospital, and that Rebecca is nearby, anxiously ushering nurses for urgent medical attention, but all she can think about is Roy. 

“The Colonel…” 

“Is being taken care of,” Rebecca reassures, and the nurses get to work immediately. Rebecca fills her in on the details to distract her from the pain and discomfort of surgery - fills her in about the number of casualties sustained, the immediate political repercussions, the collapsed buildings and damaged infrastructure, the way she’d been terrified that her best friend had died and left her alone. 

Riza manages a weak apology at that, but she can’t recall much of what happens after that as she drifts in and out of consciousness. All she can think of is her Colonel, of Roy, her commanding officer and best friend and secret lover and everything in between, Roy, _Roy_ —

—

Is alright. 

He tries to be. He throws himself into work with unparalleled zeal only a few days after they regain consciousness, listening attentively whenever a member of the unit comes bearing books and treatises on Ishvalan culture and agricultural techniques. The loss of his vision doesn’t deter his devotion in the slightest, nor his promotion. He is promoted to Brigadier General, in spite of what is viewed as a disability in the utilitarian eyes of the brass, and he works hard to keep his title. 

Even then, Riza knows it’s taken a tremendous toll on him. He’s always been used to being able to witness everything firsthand, after all. Rely on his intuition and foresight, rely on his eyes to communicate something unspeakable to her, rely on himself. 

It’s hard, at first. It’s hard for Roy to admit that he needs help, much less hers. (He’s always been a little mule-headed that way. Always talking about how everything is a collective effort, a team effort, before going off to shoulder everything on his own.) 

He rejects her help politely, claims that he’s adjusting just fine. That he’s just… alright. Peachy. 

“Sir,” Riza sighs. “Shut up.” 

He does. 

Riza loops an arm and guides him towards his bed. She fluffs his pillow and adjusts his sheets, then helps him into a sitting position gently. 

Even blind, however, Roy is quick to realise their close proximity. He tugs at her sleeve almost impatiently, like a child starved for attention, and brings her close to him, close enough for her to see the unmistakable depths of gratitude and affection in his eyes. It is almost close enough for her to cave in to years of suppressed desire, to kiss him like how she’s always wanted to, to let him know that nothing’s changed, but not quite.

Riza purses her lips and restrains herself. She does not kiss him. Instead she watches over him silently, as she always has, and reminds him of her steady, unwavering presence with a quick brush of her knuckles against his. 

And when Roy turns, searching for her face in the darkness to look at her, to look past her — 

Riza knows that he knows. 

(Roy knows that she loves him, and that's enough.)   
  


**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed!! Please leave a comment if you have the time, I'd love to hear what you thought <3 I'm also on Tumblr as [@firewoodfigs](http://firewoodfigs.tumblr.com) if you wanna say hi :) feel free to hmu if you have any requests, too, for any specific songs from the folklore/evermore albums!! <3 
> 
> \- 
> 
> i don't know if this is gold, but this was definitely a rush LMAO like yeA... work is not always a fun time :') I'm not thriving, but hey, I'm surviving, and that's something xD 
> 
> this here is my first songfic, so I really was just going in blind tbh xD I was gonna have Roy regain his sight and stuff, but I figured I'd leave that for another WIP and just leave them hanging LOLOL (no kissy roy is :(( sad :(() also gotta confess that I haven't really reviewed or edited this proper because it's currently midnight where I am hahaHAHA so this is about as raw as unpolished as it gets bUT it was a fun ride experimenting with new writing styles and squeezing out time in between office hours :') 
> 
> stay safe and take care, everyone, and i hope February is treating y'all kindly ✨
> 
> (also s/o to my friends for entertaining my "bRO do yOU evEN LIFT" questions and for instantly knowing the reason behind my sudden interest :) if roy mustang can get ripped from sitting at an office desk there is hope for us all)


End file.
